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Lydia Miller Middleton >> The Happy Adventurers
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and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE HAPPY ADVENTURERS
[Illustration: YOU CALLED ME, SO I CAME]
The Happy Adventurers
BY
LYDIA MILLER MIDDLETON
To Alastair and Margaret
"I tell this tale, which is strictly true, Just by way of convincing
you How very little, since things were made, Things have altered in
the building trade." --Kipling.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. HOW IT BEGAN
II. THE BUILDERS, OR THE LITTLE HOUSE
III. THE FORTUNE-MAKERS, OR THE CHERRY-GARDEN
IV. THE TREASURE-HUNTERS, OR THE DUKE'S NOSE
V. THE GOLD-DIGGERS, OR THE MIRACLE
VI. THE GRAPE-GATHERERS, OR WHO WAS MR. SMITH?
VII. THE AERONAUTS, OR THE FATEFUL STONE
VIII. HOW IT ENDED
ILLUSTRATIONS
"YOU CALLED ME, SO I CAME"
"I WISH I COULD MAKE SOMETHING THAT WOULD REACH FROM HERE TO MY
BROTHER"
GRIZZEL THREW IN A SMALL HANDFUL OF TEA
DICK STARTED VIOLENTLY
THEY STOOD AND WATCHED THE "KANGAROO" FOR SOME TIME
THERE THEY WERE-OH, HOW MOLLY LONGED TO KEEP THEM!
THE HAPPY ADVENTURERS
CHAPTER I
How it Began
"Dear, dear!" said Grannie, "woes cluster, as my mother used to
say."
"Let us hope that this is the last woe, and that now the luck will
turn," said Aunt Mary.
Mollie did not say anything. She had smiled the Guides' smile
valiantly through the worst of her misfortunes, but now she was so
tired that she felt nothing short of a hammer and two tacks could
fasten that smile on to her face any longer. So she closed her eyes
and lay back on the cushions, feeling that Fate had done its worst
and that no more blows were possible in the immediate future.
Grannie fetched an eiderdown and tucked it cosily round the patient,
who looked pale and chilly even on this fine warm day in June, while
Aunt Mary tidied away the remains of lotions and bandages left by
the doctor.
"The best thing now will be a little sleep," said Grannie, looking
down with kind old eyes at her granddaughter, "a little quiet sleep
and then a nice tea, with the first strawberries from the garden. I
saw quite a number of red ones this morning, and Susan shall give us
some cream."
Mollie opened her eyes again and tried to look pleased, but even the
thought of strawberries and cream could not make her feel really
happy in her heart; for one thing, she still felt rather sick.
"That will be lovely," she said, as gratefully as she could, "and
now I think I _will_ try to go to sleep, and perhaps forget things
for a little while--" and, in spite of all her efforts, a few tears
insisted upon rolling down her cheeks as she thought of home, and
Mother's disappointment, and the dull time that lay before her.
Mollie Gordon's home was in London, in the somewhat dull district of
North Kensington, where her father, Dr. Gordon, had a large but not
particularly lucrative practice, and her mother cheerfully made the
best of things from Monday morning till Sunday night. There were
five children: Mollie and her twin brother Dick; Jean, Billy, and
Bob. They lived in a large, ugly house, one of a long row of ugly
houses in a dull gardenless street, where the sidewalks were paved,
and the plane trees which bordered the road were stunted and dusty.
In the near neighbourhood ran a railway line, a car line, and four
bus routes, so that noise and dust were familiar elements in the
Gordons' lives--so familiar, indeed, that they passed unnoticed.
A month ago Mollie had been in the full swing of mid-term. Every
moment of her life had been taken up with lessons, games, and
Guiding; the days had been too short for all she wanted to get into
them, and, if she had been allowed, she would certainly have
followed the poet's advice to "steal a few hours from the night",
but, fortunately for herself, she had a sensible mother whose views
did not coincide with the poet's.
And then in the midst of all her busyness, just when she thought
herself quite indispensable to the school play, the hockey team, and
her Patrol, she fell ill with measles. She was not very ill, so far
as measles went, but her eyes remained obstinately weak, and so it
was decided that she should be sent down to the country to stay with
Grannie, do no lessons at all, and spend as much time as possible in
the open air. Luckily, or unluckily, according to the point of view,
none of the other children had caught the disease, so that Mollie
went alone to Chauncery, as Grannie's house in Sussex was called.
Chauncery was an old-fashioned house standing in a beautiful garden
surrounded by fields and woods. If Mollie could have had a companion
of her own age, she would have been perfectly happy there, in spite
of frustrated ambitions and the trial of not being allowed to read;
but the very word "measles" frightened away the neighbours, so that
no one came to keep her company, and she sometimes felt very lonely.
Nevertheless, she had accommodated herself to circumstances, and,
between playing golf with Aunt Mary, driving the fat pony, and
learning to milk the pretty Guernsey cows, she managed to "put in a
very decent time", as she expressed it. Till this third misfortune
befell her.
"First measles, then eyes, and now a sprained ankle," she sighed to
Aunt Mary on the morning after her accident; "what _can_ I do to
pass the time? It's all very well for Baden-Powell to talk, but I
can't sing and laugh all day for a week; it would drive you crazy if
I did. I have smiled till my mouth aches. What shall I do next?"
"You poor chicken!" Aunt Mary exclaimed, with the most comforting
sympathy. "You have had a run of bad luck and no mistake! We must
invent something. You can't read and you can't sew--how about
knitting? Suppose we knit a scarf in school colours for Dick, or a
jumper for yourself to wear when you are better? I could get wool in
the village. That would do to begin with, till I think of something
better."
Mollie agreed that it certainly would be better than doing nothing,
though hardly an exciting occupation for an active girl of thirteen.
So the scarf was set agoing, whilst Grannie read aloud, and the
first half of the first day was got through pretty well. But after
lunch the day darkened and rain began to fall in heavy slate-
coloured streaks, pouring down the window-panes and streaming across
the greenhouse roof, changing the bright daylight into a dismal
twilight, and blotting out all view of the garden. It was depressing
weather even for people who were quite well, and poor Mollie might
be forgiven for finding it hard to keep up her spirits. She was
tired of knitting, tired of being read aloud to, and tired of
writing letters to her family.
"How would you like to see some photographs of your father when he
was little?" suggested Grannie at last. "He was the most beautiful
infant I ever saw." She opened a cupboard door as she spoke, and
presently came back to Mollie's side with an arm-load of photograph-
albums, the kind of albums to be found in country houses, filled
with carte-de-visite photographs of old-fashioned people, all
standing, apparently, in the same studio, and each resting one hand
on the same marble pillar. The ladies wore spreading crinoline
skirts, and had hair brushed in smooth bands on either side of their
high foreheads; the men wore baggy trousers and beards; family
groups were large, and those boys and girls taken separately looked
altogether too good for this world.
Mollie smiled at the picture of her father, a fat, solemn baby in
his mother's arms. She thought, but did not say, that he was a
remarkably plain child, and congratulated herself that she took
after her mother in appearance; though, of course, Father, as she
knew him, was not in the least like that infant. At the rest of the
photographs she looked politely, but it was hard work to keep from
yawning, and at last her mouth suddenly opened of itself and gave a
great gape.
"That's right," said Grannie, "now I'll tuck you up and lower the
blinds, and you'll have a nice little nap till tea-time."
Mollie closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come.
She missed her morning walk and the fresh air of out-of-doors, so
she gave it up, opened her eyes again, and lay wakefully thinking of
home and Mother, Dick and Jean, and school. The big clock on the
mantelpiece seemed to go very, very slowly, its tick loud and
deliberate, as though it would say: "Don't think you are going to
get off one single minute--sixty minutes to the hour you have to
live through, and there are still two hours till tea-time." The rain
splashed against the window, the wind moaned through the tree-tops,
and the room got steadily darker.
"Oh dear!" Mollie whispered to herself, "what _can_ I do to make the
time pass?"
She sat up and looked round, and her eyes fell upon the last of the
photograph-albums--the one she had yawned over. She picked it up,
propped it on her knees, and, lying back against the cushions,
turned the pages over. These were all children, prim children with
tidy hair and solemn faces. Mollie stopped at the picture of a girl
dressed in a wide-skirted, sprigged-muslin frock. Her hair fell in
plump curls from beneath a broad-brimmed hat with long ribbons
floating over one shoulder. Her legs were very conspicuous in white
stockings and funny boots with tassels dangling on their fronts.
"I expect this is how Ellen Montgomery looked in _The Wide, Wide
World_," Mollie said to herself. "She would be rather pretty if she
were properly dressed; she looks about my age. I wonder what sort of
time she had--horribly dull, probably. No hockey, no Guiding, no
fox-trots--I expect she danced the polka, and recited 'Lives of
great men all remind us', and got pi-jawed ten times a day. I can't
imagine how children endured life in those days. Thank goodness I
wasn't born till 1907! She does look rather nice, though--and oh! I
wish you could talk, my dear! I _am_ dull."
Just then Aunt Mary began to play the piano in the next room. She
played soft, old-fashioned tunes, so that her niece might be soothed
to sleep. Mollie did not recognize the tunes but she liked them;
they seemed to sympathize with her as she continued to look at the
prim little girl in the photograph.
"Perhaps she played those very tunes; she looks as if she practised
for one hour a day _regularly_."
As Mollie lay there, the sweet old music sounding in her ears and
her eyes steadily fixed on the face of that other child of long ago,
it seemed to her that the child smiled at her.
"I am getting sleepy," she said to herself, and shut her eyes. But
she did not feel sleepy and soon opened them again. This time there
was no mistake about it--the child in the photograph _was_ smiling,
first with her solemn eyes, and then with her prim little mouth.
Mollie was so startled that she let the album slip from her lap, and
it fell down between the sofa and the wall. She turned round, and,
after groping in the narrow space for a minute, she succeeded in
getting hold of the album again and pulled it up. As she raised her
head and sat up, she saw, standing beside her sofa, as large as
life, the prim little girl--wide skirts, white stockings, tasselled
boots, and all.
As Mollie stared "with all her eyes" as people say, the little girl
smiled at her again, and she noticed that, although the child's
dress was so very old-fashioned, her smile was quite a To-day smile,
so to speak.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mollie, "who are you?"
"I am a Time-traveller," the child answered, speaking in a
peculiarly soft voice. "You called me, so I came."
"What on earth is a Time-traveller?" asked Mollie, rather surprised
to find that she did not feel in the least alarmed at this sudden
apparition.
"A person who travels in Time," the child replied. "I am one, and
you are one, but everybody isn't one. I can't explain, so you'd
better not waste time asking questions if you want to travel. I
can't wait here long."
"But--" said Mollie, looking bewildered, as well she might. "Travel
where? Of course I'd love to come, but how can I with a crocked-up
ankle; and what would Grannie say?"
"Those things don't matter to Time-travellers," said the other
child. "We travel about in Time. You haven't got to think about what
is happening here and now--that will be all right. But you have to
make a vow before you begin Time-travelling. Do you know what a vow
is?"
"Of course I do," Mollie replied; "I'm a Girl Guide."
"I don't know what a Girl Guide is," said the other girl, wrinkling
up her pretty forehead, "but a Time-traveller has to vow on her
faith and honour never to say one single word about her adventures
to any grown-up, either here or there. You must not ask them
questions that will make them wonder things, however much you want
to, because they don't understand, and would be almost sure to
interfere. Will you vow?"
"Yes, I will, but you must give me one moment to think. Where shall
I travel to and how long shall I stay?"
"You come along with me to my Time; I don't know how long you will
stay. A year of our Time might be a minute of yours, or a minute of
ours might be a year of yours, but you will be all right. Have you
ever seen a dissolving view?"
"That's a magic lantern, isn't it? Yes, Dick once had one. I think
they are rather dull."
"Oh no, not if they are properly done. Hugh--" she stopped and then
began again. "You will step into a dissolving view of our Time. It
just begins and ends anyhow, and you go out of it again."
"But it's so _queer_," Mollie said doubtfully. "I never _heard_ of
such a thing. I must be dreaming."
The other child shook her head. "No, you're not," she said
patiently. She looked around the room as though in search of
inspiration, and her eyes fell upon a volume of Shakespeare which
Aunt Mary had been reading: "Do you learn Shakespeare at your
school?" she asked.
"Rather," Mollie answered, in a slightly superior voice; "I have
acted in six plays."
"Ah--then you remember what Hamlet says: 'There are more things in
Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy'."
"We haven't done _Hamlet_ yet," Mollie answered, in a less superior
tone, "I don't think I quite understand what that means."
"Neither do I," said the child. "That's it, you see. Papa says--"
she stopped short again, and then went on. "It's nearly time for me
to go--and I can never come back if you don't come this time,"
moving away a few steps as she spoke.
"Oh, don't go--don't go," Mollie cried. "I do want to come; it won't
do anyone any harm, will it?"
The child smiled very sweetly: "Not the least in the world. But
remember the vow. On your faith and honour."
"I vow, I vow--on my word of honour as a Guide. I can't say more
than that."
"Give me your hand, then. Listen to the music, and shut your eyes
till I tell you to open them."
Mollie closed her eyes. She had a queer swimmy feeling, as if she
were in a high swing and were just swooping down to the lowest
point. All the time Aunt Mary's tunes went on, but they seemed to go
farther and farther away.
"Open," said a soft voice.
* * * * *
The darkened room had vanished, and the ticking clock; Aunt Mary's
tunes and the rain splashing on the window-panes; the sofa too, and
the prim child. And Mollie herself!
* * * * *
She was standing in a sunny road, with one foot on a white painted
wooden gate, upon which she had evidently been swinging. The gate
opened into a large garden, and before her lay a broad path planted
on either side with tall, pointed cypress trees, their thin shadows
lying across the walk like black bars. Between the trees ran narrow
flower-beds, and beyond these stretched a wide, open space, so
solidly spread with yellow dandelions that it looked as though the
golden floor of heaven had come to rest upon earth. The path, with
its sentinel trees, led straight as a rod to a distant house, long
and low, surrounded by a vine-covered veranda. There were strange,
sweet smells in the air, which felt soft and warm. The sky was
brilliantly blue, and on the fence across the road a gorgeous parrot
sat preening its feathers in the sunshine.
Mollie looked about her with curious eyes, wondering where she was.
Not in England, of that she was sure--there was a different feel in
the air, colours were brighter, scents were stronger, and that
radiant parrot would never perch itself so tranquilly upon an
English fence.
Then she saw, coming down the path, a girl of about her own age,
dressed in a brown-holland overall trimmed with red braid, high to
the throat, and belted round the waist. She wore no hat, and her
hair fell over her shoulders in plump brown curls. By her side paced
a large dog, a rough-haired black-and-white collie with sagacious
brown eyes. He leapt forward with a short bark, but the girl laid a
restraining hand on his back:
"Down, Laddie, down," she said, "don't you know a friend when you
see one? Come in, Mollie."
And suddenly Mollie knew where she was. This was Adelaide, in
Australia; that was the child in the photograph, whose name, she
knew, was Prudence Campbell; and they were living in the year 1878.
CHAPTER II
The Builders or The Little House
Mollie left the white gate, which swung behind her with a sharp
click, and walked up the path towards Prudence. Laddie circled round
with a few inquiring sniffs, decided that the newcomer was harmless,
and stood blinking his eyes in the sunlight, his bushy tail waving
slowly from side to side. Prudence slid an arm through Mollie's.
"I'm so glad you've come," she said. "Hugh's little house is all but
finished, and he promised to let us up to-day. Let's go and sit
beside Grizzel till he calls."
Mollie's eyes followed the turn of Prue's head, and she saw a
younger child seated upon the golden floor beyond the flower-beds.
This child wore an overall of bright blue cotton, shaped like
Prue's, and her head was covered with short red curls, which shone
in the sun like burnished copper. Prudence frowned a little as she
looked at her sister:
"How Grizzel can sit in the middle of that yellow, dressed in that
blue, with that red hair, I can't think," she said. "She calls
herself an artist, but it simply puts my teeth on edge. Did you ever
see anything so ugly?"
"Ugly!" Mollie repeated in surprise. "I think it is beautiful, just
like a picture in _Colour_. What is she doing?"
The child looked up at that moment and smiled at them. "Hullo,
Mollie," she said in a friendly tone, as if she were quite well
acquainted with the new arrival, "come and see my dandelion-chain;
it's nearly done."
Prudence jumped the flower-bed, followed by Mollie and the dog, and
all three made their way through the thickly growing dandelions, and
seated themselves beside Grizzel. She had filled her lap with
dandelions, and was busily occupied in linking them together as
English children link a daisy-chain.
"What are you doing?" Mollie asked again, as her eyes followed
Grizzel's chain, and she observed that it stretched far away out of
sight among the trees and bushes.
"I am laying a chain right round the garden," Grizzel replied. "When
it is finished it will be the longest dandelion-chain in the world."
"What are you going to do with it?" asked Mollie.
"Nothing," answered Grizzel.
"Then what's the good of making it?" asked Mollie.
"It isn't meant to be any good," answered Grizzel, "it's only meant
to be the longest dandelion-chain in the world."
"But there's nothing beautiful about longness," persisted Mollie.
"You wouldn't like to have the longest nose in the world."
"It would be rather nice," said Grizzel, working as steadily as the
Princess in Hans Andersen's tale of the "White Swans", "then I could
smell all the delicious smells there are. Mamma says a primrose-
patch in an English wood is delicious."
"Don't waste your breath trying to make Grizzel change her mind,"
Prudence interposed. "Papa says you might as well explain to a
pigling which way you want it to go. Let's help with her chain and
get it finished. I'm tired of it." She threw a handful of yellow
bloom into Mollie's lap as she spoke, and began herself to link some
stalks together in a somewhat dreamy and lazy fashion. Mollie
followed her example more briskly.
"It's a pity, you know," she said to Grizzel, "to leave the poor
little flowers withering all round the garden when they might have
gone on growing for days. They will soon be faded and forgotten."
"I'd rather fade in the longest chain in the world than be one of a
million dandelions growing on their roots," Grizzel said, pulling a
fresh handful and shifting her chain to make room for them.
Mollie shook her head but did not argue any more. She dropped her
chain and looked round the garden. Although the sun was so warm and
bright the flowers were those which grow in springtime in England.
Daffodils, narcissus, freesias, and violets grew thickly in the
borders and under the trees, which seemed to be mostly fruit-trees,
though Mollie did not recognize them all. Peach and apricot were in
bloom; fig trees and mulberry trees spread out their broad leaves;
and an immense vividly scarlet geranium dazzled even Mollie's modern
eyes. It was a funny mixture of seasons, she thought.
Suddenly Prudence jumped to her feet, letting all her dandelions
drop unheeded. "There's Hugh!" she exclaimed; "he is calling us. The
house must be finished. Come on, Grizzel, leave your old chain--come
on, Mollie."
Grizzel shook her head and set all the red curls bobbing; "I must
finish my chain first. You go. I won't be long."
Prudence and Mollie jumped the flower-beds again, Laddie, who had
fallen comfortably asleep among the dandelions, deciding after a few
lazy blinks to stay where he was. A slender boy in grey was waiting
for them in the veranda. He was like Prue, but fairer, and his eyes
were peculiarly clear and thoughtful.
"Come on," he said, "I'm ready for the furnishings now. What I want
is: first, a carpet; second, curtains; and third--third--a tin-
opener; but there is no great hurry for that. Where can I get a
carpet?"
"Schoolroom hearthrug," Prudence suggested promptly. "No one will
notice, and it's pretty shabby since I dropped the red-hot poker and
you spilt the treacle-toffee."
"And the curtains?"
"You can have the striped blanket off my bed," said Prue, after a
moment's consideration, "we can cut it in halves."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mollie. "Cut a blanket in halves! What
will your mother say to that?"
"Mamma won't know," Prudence replied calmly. "She never looks at my
bed, and, if she did, she would forget it had ever had a striped
blanket on it. Come on, Mollie, we'll get the things and smuggle
them across while no one is looking."
Mollie felt shocked for a minute. Doing things behind backs was all
against Guide Law, and at home she would almost as soon think of
chopping up her own feet as of cutting up Mother's blankets to play
with. But, she reflected, different times have different ways; there
was no Guide Law in 1878, and perhaps Prue's mother was very extra
strict, in which case "all's fair in love and war", so she followed
Prue into the house. It was, to her eyes, an unusual sort of house,
all built on the ground floor, so that there was no staircase. The
front door opened into a square hall with doors on all sides. Prue
pushed one open and they passed through into a bedroom, very plainly
furnished with two little beds, two chests of drawers, a wash-stand,
and a chair. They pulled the white cover off one bed and hauled away
a blanket, cheerfully striped in scarlet, purple, yellow, and green,
with a few black and white lines thrown in here and there. Mollie
thought it would be rather a difficult blanket to forget about. Prue
replaced the white cover, spreading it smoothly and neatly, rolled
up the blanket, and made for the door again.
Hugh had disappeared. They walked down the veranda, passing several
open French windows through which Mollie caught a glimpse of
sitting-rooms, and crossed a paved courtyard, at the farther side of
which was a red brick house with a wooden porch in front of it.
"The schoolroom is here," Prudence explained, "because Mamma doesn't
like noise. It's a very good plan for us; we can do lots of things
we couldn't do if we were in the house. Miss Wilton is our
governess; she has gone home to-day to nurse a sister with
bronchitis. I'm sorry for the sister, but it's a treat for us,
especially as Hugh has got a half-holiday. Mamma is out, Bridget has
taken Baby for a walk, and Mary is talking to her sweetheart across
the fence, so we'll get the hearthrug without any questions."
As she talked, Prudence led the way into the schoolroom. It was
plainly furnished and not very tidy, but it had a homely look--in
fact it reminded Mollie of the nursery in North Kensington, so that,
for one very brief moment, she almost felt homesick. But Prudence
gave her little time to indulge in this luxurious sensation (because
having a home nice enough to be sick for is a luxury in its way),
and Mollie had merely taken in a general impression of books, toys,
and shabbiness, when Prudence called her to help with the hearthrug.
It certainly was shabby and by no means added to the beauty of the
room. They rolled it up with the blanket inside, and, carrying it
between them, they left the schoolroom, crossed the courtyard again,
scrambled over a low stone wall, and arrived at the foot of a tall
tree.
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